Anthropologist Hugh Raffles uncovers the dramatic lives and deaths of insects in his new book Insectopedia, from cricket fighting in Shanghai to the Japanese trend of keeping beetles as pets.

A formidable opponent for fishermen and an easy-to-raise source of food, the dominion of the Rainbow Trout has spread to every continent except Antarctica, explains Anders Halverson, author of An Entirely Synthetic Fish.

Historian Caroline Alexander, author of The War the Killed Achilles, deconstructs The Iliad as an unconventional epic of war.

Lewis talks with Bill Radke about the day jobs of famous writers, including William Faulkner's tenure as the "worst postmaster in this history of Ole Miss"

Lewis Lapham speaks with Timothy McBain of TomDispatch about the process of putting together an issue of Lapham's Quarterly.

Superior weaponry doesn't always make for a successful empire explains historian Daniel R. Headrick in his book Power Over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present.

Civilizations have risen and fallen over access to the world's great oceans and waterways. Steven Solomon traces the history of this essential molecule in his book Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization.

David Priestland recounts the sweeping history of the far-reaching movement that shaped the twentieth century in his new book The Red Flag: A History of Communism.

Robert Krulwich is the host of WNYC's Radiolab and is a correspondent for NPR's science desk. He reads Abraham's sacrifice of Issac from the Book of Genesis.

The desire to possess the skulls of the famous led to the robbery of the graves of Haydn, Bethoveen, and Goya. Colin Dickey recounts these tales in Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius.